FACT FILE

Location: Geneva, Switzerland Established: 1 January 1995 Created by: Uruguay Round negotiations (1986-94) Membership: 159 countries on 2 March 2013 Budget: 197 million Swiss francs for 2013 Secretariat staff: 640 Head: Roberto Azevêdo (Director-General) Functions: • Administering WTO trade agreements • Forum for trade negotiations • Handling trade disputes • Monitoring national trade policies • Technical assistance and training for developing countries • Cooperation with other international organizations

Exercise 5. Watch some videos fro the official site of the WTO to learn more about this global trade body. Tell the class what you’ve learnt. To begin, make use of the following links:

http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/whatis_e.htm

http://www.youtube.com/user/WTO

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news_e.htm

Exercise 6. Open the brackets. Infinitives, Gerunds or Participles can be used.

Relationship between the WTO and MEA rules

There are over 250 multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) (deal) with various environmental issues which are currently in force. About 20 of these include provisions that can (affect) trade. For instance, they may (contain) measures that prohibit trade in certain species or products, or that allow countries (restrict) trade in certain circumstances.

A question that may (arise) is whether measures under a multilateral agreement are compatible with WTO rules. For example, a multilateral agreement could (authorize) trade in a specific product between its parties, but ban trade in the same product with countries that have not (sign) the agreement.

This could be (find) to be incompatible with WTO’s non-discrimination principle (know) as “most (favour) nation treatment”, which requires countries (grant) equivalent treatment to the same (or “like”) products (import) from any WTO member country. On the other hand, WTO rules do allow members (derogate) from their obligations in some cases, for instance where a measure is (aim) at the conservation of natural resources, provided certain conditions are (meet).

No formal dispute (involve) a measure under a multilateral environmental agreement has so far been (bring) to the WTO. However, the complexity of the relationship between environmental and trade rules was (highlight) in the “Chile — Swordfish” case.

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Exercise 1.	\|	Exercise 7. In this text from a special booklet you are going to learn about the 10 benefits of the WTO trading system; some are well-known, and others are not so obvious.

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